Life of Pi [DVD]

Yann Martel's ponderous adventure novel gets the big-screen treatment with this Fox 2000 adaptation helmed by director Ang Lee. The coming-of-age story surrounds the son of a zookeeper who survives a shipwreck by stowing away on a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger by the name of Richard Parker. Suraj Sharma heads up the cast as the young boy, with Grard Depardieu, Adil Hussain, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, and Bollywood actress Tabu also starring.

"Ang Lee's adaptation of Yann Martel's mega-selling novel LIFE OF PI is technically adept....The 3D is eye-popping and the film lively with incident..."Box Office

4 stars out of 4 -- "Ang Lee's LIFE OF PI is a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery."Chicago Sun-Times

"[A]s elegant as it is epic with the director creating a grand adventure so cinematically bold, and a spiritual voyage so quietly profound, that if not for the risk to the castaways, you might wish their passage from India would never end."Los Angeles Times

"Director Ang Lee executes all this with dizzying, overwhelming verve: The shipwreck in particular is a dazzling sequence, particularly traumatic in 3-D..." -- Grade: A-A.V. Club

3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Lee uses 3D with the delicacy and lyricism of a poet. You don't just watch this movie, you live it."Rolling Stone

"Everything looks beautiful in LIFE OF PI....Pure gorgeousness, shimmering with all the wow that superlative 3-D technology has to offer."Entertainment Weekly

"[A] thrillingly conceived and executed take on Yann Martels Booker Prize winner."Total Film

"[B]eautifully filmed by Claudio Miranda, inflected with a hint of exoticism by Mychael Dannas score and graced with the presence of a handful of excellent Indian actors..."New York Times

"Like a lyrical, extravagantly hued childrens pop-up book, LIFE OF PI both draws the audience in and encourages it to settle back, the better to enjoy its virtually nonstop display of daring, wonder and cinematic virtuosity."Washington Post

"PI gains a front-row seat on the miracles of creation, bearing witness to an out-to-sea world full of astonishing and ethereal visions..."Sight and Sound